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Thoughts on Tattoos - Possible Spoilers for Episode 4

I've been thinking about the show a LOT this week. To the point where it's been consuming too much of my personal time, and I forgot all about working on my horror podcast (And my brain is telling me to start a Gifted podcast but nooooo must resist), oops...but anyways, I figured I'd post some of my thoughts here since it might spark discussion, be interesting information, and make me feel like I'm not wasting time talking to the voices in my head.

Possible spoilers if you haven't seen episode four yet...

After the episode, the Gifted writers Twitter account posted a behind the scenes look at the tattoo/brand that they discovered Pulse had on his arm, and with the question, 'wonder if it means anything?'

It didn't take me long for the mark to trigger some bells in my memory. First of all, tattoos and/or brands have a long history in the X-Men universe, specifically their dark futures (And are nods to what Nazis did to the Jews). Most notably, folks know about the M tattoos Bishop and mutants from his timeline have over one of their eyes, but there's another that a lot of people probably forget about because it's rarely pointed out and could be misconstrued as a power signature, that is ESPECIALLY relevant here.

Rachel Summers, the possible future daughter of Cyclops and Phoenix, has a brand all over her face in the Days of Future Past timeline she comes from, and The Gifted borrows a lot from. It's a bunch of radial lines emanating from the centre of her face, and often her features are completely blacked out when we see it.

Oh, and she has this mark because it's a brand of her being a Hound, a mutant taken and forced through training, and brainwashing, and mind control, to hunt down their own kind.

Sound familiar? Sounds like exactly what's happened to Pulse, yes?

And I dug through my comics to find a few good examples of Rachel's brand to illustrate my point.

So yeah, I think this is either version 1.0 of the Hound markings, and we could see them evolve into more facial markings in the future. I could see them going this route because for now, they want the mark to remain a secret, that Sentinel Serivces is employing mutants, or they are under control or whatever, and it becomes a full face brand in the future to both double as a sign of control, and act as 'war paint' to scare mutants because they know those markings mean they're Hounds.

OR, that version of the marking could be the end of it, and this is as far as they'll go with Hound brands, because this is a LOT easier to do and maintain on a tv budget and schedule. Which actually seems the most likely thing to me.